According to a report by Mike Sielski of the Wall Street Journal, Bobby Bonilla has essentially fleeced the Mets of almost $25 million, and, quite frankly, it was either complete genius by him or complete stupidity from the Mets' front office.
After the 1999 season, a year in which Bonilla gave the Mets a solid .160 BA with 4 HR and 18 RBIs, the team clearly did not want to keep him for his final year at the $5.9 million he was owed. Therefore, the Mets decided to buy out the final year of his contract.
Okay, that makes sense. Let's not even go into why they would re-acquire him in the first place after his first failed stint with the team.
However, this is where things get a little tricky. Instead of simply buying out his contract for a little less than the $5.9 million that they owed him and paid him to leave the team, the Mets wanted to defer his payments with interest, so that they could spend this money right away. While baseball economics were different even only ten years ago, I don't see how the Mets could not afford to pay Bonilla his buyout upfront and still pay other players a total of $5.9 million. (This is the same team who gave Bonilla a 5 year $29 million contract earlier in his career for no justifiable reason.)
Anyway, let's go to the result: the Mets, starting in 2011, will start paying Bonilla annual payments of $1,193,248.20 for the next 25 years that total $29,831,205, or 505% MORE THAN THE FINAL YEAR OF HIS ORIGINAL CONTRACT.
(I can feel Mets' fans cringing at these numbers.)
The Mets have had no comment on the issue other than to say, "It's old news. There's nothing new here."
However, Bonilla was happy to chime in for the story.
"Hey," Mr. Bonilla said, "a blind squirrel can find an acorn."
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